It All Comes Down to This

Summer is waning, much as I hate to admit it. I glanced at the calendar the other day and realized that, in four weeks, school begins. My daughter starts 4th grade on a Tuesday, and my son begins kindergarten two days later, a shortened week of two 1/2 days before beginning full days the following week.

And I was browsing our community magazine a day or two ago, looking at the library's offerings for children, preschool story times, baby sign classes, and realized: It's over. My boy is too old for story time now, we've left it behind. We've left behind the diapers, first steps, nap times, all those baby things I love.

This is what we work for, as parents, we work to leave behind the baby years, we nurture our children and encourage them to take risks, feed them their fruits and vegetables, push them out and away from our protecting arms because it is what we are supposed to do. They are supposed to grow and change and leave us.

But I don't want them to leave me.

I am just past 40 now, closing in on 41 -- my birthday is in just a few weeks. I spent the decade of my 30s focused on babies -- having them, wanting them, overcoming the grief of losing one, deciding whether or not to have anymore. We first started trying for a baby when I was 29, though didn't manage pregnancy for over a year, along with the help of medical intervention, and my first child was born when I was 31. Three years later, Ben. 20 months after that, James, just before I turned 36. Followed by four more years of wanting another, debating having another, knowing all the while that there would be no more babies for us. (I am not quite reconciled to this decision, nor do I think I will ever be.)

And though there are many years of parenting ahead of me, I am having trouble letting go of that baby-obsessed decade. I'm having trouble letting go of the best things I've ever done, trouble pushing them out of the nest. And this is what it comes down to: letting them go, when I will always want to hold them in my arms like I did when they were born.

There is so much I didn't know: how hard it would be, nor how wonderful. How fast they would grow and leave me behind.

Turn Around

Where are you going, my little one, little one?
Where are you going, my baby, my own?

Turn around and you're two

Turn around and you're four

Turn around and you're a young boy
Going out of the door

. . .Where have they gone
My babies, my own
Turn around and they’re young
Turn around and they’re old
Turn around and they’re gone
And we’ve no one to hold.

* * *

My baby boy "graduated" from preschool this week, and I wonder, like the words of this song, where my baby has gone. I miss him even as he is with me, as every minute seems to bring changes and with every passing moment he grows up. As he should. 

Because I lost Ben, maybe I love my children more, now. Maybe I appreciate where they are in every moment, how precious they are. But I still wish I could keep them small for a little while longer. If I could change one thing about myself, it would be this: how hard it is for me to let my babies go, how sentimental I feel with each milestone. How much I wish I could squeeze this time into a bottle and keep it with me forever.

How much I will miss right now, when it's over.